


Tomorrow is a long time

by madswritings



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fear, Panic, Post-Apocalypse, Worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-20
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-11-16 13:02:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11253510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madswritings/pseuds/madswritings
Summary: You wake up in the hospital just to find that you’re not alone. The hospital is empty apart from you two so you decide to look around and figure out what happened. | As per request on Tumblr





	Tomorrow is a long time

You wake up and the first you see is white color of the ceiling. You don’t feel pain, you don’t feel dizzy, you feel… nothing. You turn your head to the window and see it’s daytime. Slowly, very slowly you sit up and scratch your head, then you notice your hair is quite long. You take a strand and bring it before your eyes. How long you’ve been unconscious? Now with a frown you look around and you feel something’s wrong. Something’s very wrong but you don’t quite understand yet.  
“Nurse?” You raise your voice and wait for a moment before calling out again.  
Nothing.  
With a struggle you sit up more comfortably and look around your hospital room. It looks like it hasn’t been cleaned in some days, maybe weeks; you see thick layer of dusk on the counter next to your bed on your right. You also see flowers that your brother probably brought you. You try to remember what happened to you as you look around, this time more slowly, once more.  
You know you were pushed and hit your head in the parking lot. Were you in a coma? Probably. So why’s the room so… unclean? As you turn your eyes to the window it finally hits you and your frown turns to shock.  
You hear nothing. No people outside of your room, no cars outside the window and no machines beeping, tracking your vitals. You turn to the screen that should show your heart rate and blood pressure but it’s off. Finally you look at yourself and start pulling cords from your body like a marionette trying to free herself. Then your mind registers another thing and you quickly look at the flowers seeing that they are long dried out and dead.  
“What the…” You mutter but are not able to finish your sentence because you hear something outside.  
“Hello?!” Suddenly a man’s voice reaches you and you step out of the bed. Your legs feel weak but when you put your weight on them they hold.  
Carefully, in case your legs decide to give in after all, you shuffle to the door and try to open it but it doesn’t budge. Now with more energy and almost panic you start pulling on the door handle and when that doesn’t work you start banging on the door while screaming.  
“Let me out! LET ME OUT!” You scream and you hear slow, unsure footsteps coming to the door.  
“Are you okay?” Same man who yelled before asks right outside your door and you stop slamming your fists against the hard wood.  
“I think so, yes. Can you open the door?” You ask slightly out of breath from all that yelling and the door handle turns few times but the door doesn’t open.  
“I think it’s locked, I’ll look for a key.” The man says and you can almost sense him turning and slowly walking away.  
“NO!” You shout in a moment of panic. “Please don’t leave me.” You feel scared but you are not sure why. Probably because you didn’t expect the unexpected.  
You hear the man stopping and how he deeply sighs then he falls silent for a moment.  
“That’s lucky.” He mutters and you’re about to ask what happened when you hear a joyful jingle of keys.  
“You found the keys?” You ask excited to get out of this room.  
“Yeah I think so. Let me try them.” The man responds and soon after that he starts putting differed keys into the lock. You don’t even know why hospital needed to put a coma patient in room with a lock but it doesn’t matter now.  
Finally, a happy sound to your ears when key turns in the lock and it clicks. You reach out to the handle and without hesitation you open the door. Behind it you see a man. He looks like he just woke up too but also looks in a worse shape than you. While only in his underwear and a hospital robe he also has bandages on his torso. You, on the other hand, are only in hospital provided nightgown. All of the sudden you feel naked once you understand that you have no underwear underneath.  
“My name’s Rick.” He says and offers you a hand which you take and shake in response.  
“Y/N.” You mutter then hardly swallow. “Can you give me a moment?” You ask all of the sudden feeling the desperate need to have any underwear on.  
“Uhh, sure.” Rick mutters a bit confused and you close the door then rummage through the room until you find your underwear. You don’t find any clothes so you figure the ones you were wearing at the time of the accident were tossed out as dirty and your brother didn’t think of bringing you new ones.  
After you finally feel the comfort of underwear under your nightgown you exit the room and look around.  
“So what…happened…” You mutter as you notice bloody handprints on the walls, bullet holes too, ripped out wires from the ceiling.  
“I don’t know but something bad.” Rick responds once more looking around himself. “We should try to find someone.” He says like a man who knows how to act in stressful situations so his confidence makes you feel a little bit better.  
You turn your eyes to him and frown as you look down on his bandages.  
“Are you okay?” You ask and Rick glances down at his bandages too, puts his hand where you guess the pain or wound is but nods.  
“Nothing a handful of painkillers can’t heal.” He even manages a small smile but you both know that what’s waiting for you is far from okay.  
“Alright, let’s look around.” You agree and you both start walking side by side. Rick is a bit slow but you don’t rush anywhere. Somewhere deep inside your mind you know that you don’t really want to know what happened. You need to, but you don’t want to. “Maybe someone attacked the hospital and everyone abandoned it?” You ask giving a short glance to Rick and he remains silent for a while, thinking.  
“Maybe, but would they forget to take patients with them as they left?” Now Rick gives you a short glance and you know he’s right. Something that happened here wasn’t… normal so to say. “Here, nurses station.” He starts shuffling faster and you follow him.  
As you approach the station you look down over the counter and see scattered papers, pencils and other things telling you that people left in a rush.  
“The phone.” There’s hope in Rick’s voice and he moves to the phone, then picks up the receiver and eagerly presses it against his ear. Then his expression changes into a worried one.  
“You hear anything?” You ask for a moment hopeful too but Rick’s expression makes you admit bitter reality.  
“Give me a moment.” He mutters as he starts pressing the buttons of the telephone and remains listening but finally he puts the receiver down and turns to you. From his eyes you can see that he heard nothing.  
“So what now?” You ask and Rick turns his eyes away thinking again.  
“Let’s try to go outside. Someone must be there who can explain what happened here.” He decides and you nod agreeing.  
“Let’s go.” You mutter feeling how your mouth is becoming dry from dreadful anticipation.  
Once again, side by side, you two start walking down the corridor and you finally see the double door.  
DON’T OPEN  
DEAD INSIDE  
The writing on the door say and you exchange confused looks with Rick. When you turn your eyes back to the door you see it’s locked with a heavy chain and a padlock. You both stand there thinking of what you should do but finally Rick moves to the door and pulls on it.  
“Hello?” He asks through the open crack and you know you hear something or someone. It sounds like very slow walking, like someone is dragging their feet and… low growling?  
You step to Rick and put your hand on his shoulder.  
“Rick maybe-“ Suddenly hands appear in the open crack and Rick leans back in shock. Before you can even start feeling hope you notice that those hands and fingers are of people who should be dead. The skin is dark and dry, some of the fingers are missing flesh whatsoever and one hand is trying to reach out so eagerly that it rips its skin to the bone against the edge of the door.  
“Let’s go.” Your grip on Rick’s shoulder tightens and Rick stands there for a moment, hypnotized by the hands just like you, but finally he snaps and you both move to the door on your left at the end of the corridor. This door has EXIT painted above it.  
Without speaking you and Rick reach the door and open it seeing it’s completely dark.  
“It shouldn’t be more than two maybe three floors. We can do it in the dark.” He says and you hardly swallow then nod. You don’t feel comfortable going into the darkness willingly, but there’s no other choice but to either go outside now or wander through the hospital and try to find the main exit. This is quicker and probably safer if more of those dead hands owners are around.  
Slowly, very slowly you two move into the dark and when the door closes leaving you completely surrounded by void you start feeling that panic that tried to get a grip on you before.  
“Rick.” You ask silently.  
“I’m here. Just hold on the railing and check where you step.” He responds silently too. It’s like neither you nor him want to disturb this silence in case someone is lurking, waiting for you.  
For a while you only hear panting and some struggling while you two make it down the stairs.  
“I think I found the door.” Suddenly Rick says and you hear metal moving as he grips the door handle and pulls on it.  
The light makes you blind for a moment and you blink quickly to get used to it again. So does Rick, but when you can finally see Rick glances at you, you nod to him and you walk outside.  
You never expected to see what you’re seeing right now.  
There are bodies everywhere. You know this because despite sheets covering each and every body laid on the grass in the yard there are hands and feet sticking out here and there.  
“Rick… Oh my God…” You whisper but Rick says nothing. With a stern face he looks around and starts climbing down the stairs that lead to the ground. You follow him despite every instinct in your body shouting to stay where you are.  
When on the ground Rick goes to the nearest body and lifts the sheet looking down. Then he lets the sheet drop.  
“I need to go to my family.” He suddenly says as he turns to you and you look him straight in the eyes. You know you need to find your brother too but you sure as hell don’t want to be alone.  
“I need to find my brother too.” You respond after a moment and Rick nods. Neither of you assume that you will be going in the same direction.  
He turns from you and you both move to the exit of the yard that’s enclosed with metal fence. From there you can see the parking lot and the view doesn’t bring you any comforting feelings either. Cars either parked everywhere with open doors or crashed against each other, more dead bodies around but these are uncovered. Even a helicopter but you don’t see to what organization it belongs because you’re facing the front of it.  
“My route is through there.” Rick points to the South which leads through the parking lot.  
“Mine’s there.” You point to the East and your road will take you through the hospital park which seems to be empty.  
Rick turns to you and you want to say something but you’re not sure what.  
“Hope you’ll find your family.” You finally say but this hope doesn’t seem so bright. You can see in Rick’s eyes that even if he knows it, he doesn’t want to admit it just yet. He offers you his hand and despite his stern face he gives you a smile.  
“I’m sure you’ll find your brother.” He says and you take his hand once more, squeezing it a bit too hard because you’re nervous.  
“I’m sure of it too.” You say even though you’re openly lying.  
Rick nods, you let go of each other’s hands and he starts walking. You watch his back for a while, almost hoping he would ask you to come along or would offer to help you find your brother but you know he won’t so you sigh, turn your eyes from him and start walking too.  
You still don’t know what happened and despite the world being seemingly empty at the moment, you never felt more claustrophobic in your life.  
Once more you glace at Rick who’s already far away and you just hope that if you both survive this strange day maybe you’ll meet again one day. 

**Author's Note:**

> Want me to write a fic for you? Check my tumblr @madswritings.tumblr.com for current fic status and rules.


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